Fire Flies
by Angelycious
Summary: A one shot of how I think I would meet the Doctor. Full explanation inside. T for slight innuendo and jokes.


**Fire Flies**

**So this story is going to be a self insert. It's nothing major, just how I imagine my meeting the Doctor would go. Of course in this instance, Doctor Who the series doesn't exist as that would be weird. So bearing that in mind, I have tried to make this as close to my own character as possible, of course it's a little difficult to imagine what my life would be like without the Doctor in it. But I have given it a go. Please enjoy. This story is also going to feature the 12th Doctor, Peter Capaldi and as I don't know what his personality is going to be like, this is mostly going to be guess work. However, the Peter Capaldi of my imagination is suave, sophisticated and just a little devilish, a bit like Jon Pertwee and David Tennant mixed together. Though I got the devilish part from his promo where he was smiling and I immediately thought of mischief. So yeah, that answers that question. Just a heads up, none of the names, except my own, in this are true, because they are based off of real persons that I do not have permission to be writing about. The personalities though are still intact and most of this is based on real things that happened to me, of course anything involving the Doctor is real only in my dreams. Now, on with the story.**

**A/N: Sorry that it is going to take a while to get to the initial story, but I'm setting up some background and giving some insight into the type of person I am. Sorry in advance.**

* * *

Mondays, I hate Mondays.

White, denim skinnies, white shirt, orange jacket, hair twisted up with a clip. Monday's and Thursday's and Friday's are Uni days. It wasn't a very cool day, in fact it was actually quite warm, but when one is expected to give a presentation, one usually tries to look ones best. Well, the best you can do on short notice anyway. It was only at six thirty this morning that I was told I would be doing my presentation. I had it all teed up for next week, but two of the groups had dropped out on short notice, so now it fell to me. Something that annoyed me to no end. I wasn't fully prepared for this and the fact that I am now rushing about to collect my notes, did not escape my mother's notice.

"Running late are we?" She asked, her eyebrow raised in that condescending way mothers do when they think they're right.

"Not exactly..." I murmured, more focussed on trying to organise my notes before my bus came then actually paying attention to her.

"What's going on then, what time is it." I supposed she was looking at the clock, but seeing as I was in the lounge room and she was in the kitchen, I could not see her. "It's nearly twenty past seven, are you going in early?"

I nodded, then realised that I was in a different room and that I was bent over the lounge, organising my notes, she likely wouldn't have seen that. "Uh, yeah, I have to get in by ten past eight, I have a presentation this morning."

There was a moment of silence and I thought my mother had left the room. When I heard a shuffle beside me however, I looked up to find that she was holding the missing notes in her hand, shaking her head. I smiled lightly, they must have been where I left them.

"Bedroom?"

She nodded and I took them from her, placing them in my pile and shoving them in the folder. This was going to be a half an hour presentation, one from me and one from whoever was after me, I was pretty sure it was Bec, but then she might have cancelled as well. I just didn't know, I thought we had been told we couldn't cancel, something serious must have happened to be able to cancel.

As I headed out the door with my bag slung over my shoulder and my phone in my pocket, it occurred to me that this was going to be a weird day. I didn't know why, but there was just this feeling I was getting, like something wasn't quite right. Of course, I was doing a presentation when I wasn't supposed to be, that went along way to convincing me I was just imagining things.

After a twenty minute bus ride to the station, ten minutes on the train (which I was extremely lucky was exactly on time) and then another fifteen minutes or so on the shuttle, it was nearly eight and I was again rushing, though this time it was to get to my class room in order to set up before my tutor got there. I should have been ready five minutes ago, in case she got in early, but I figures with the way my luck was going today, I was going to be fine.

All the running around made me glad I had used a tonne of deodorant this morning. Didn't want to smell while I was presenting, that would have been no fun at all.

By the time I got to my class room and was set up, it was just on ten past eight and my tutor Lillian strode in. She was a wonderful tutor and she was currently doing her PHD which meant she understood the stress we were going through as English students. It meant she tended to give us a bit of leeway when it came to assignments. She understood us better than most. We were eternally greatful.

The only thing about this presentation that I was worried about, was my subject matter. We were not allowed to choose our own subject matter, it was given from a randomised databank of all different topics. I was the unlucky one to be stuck with Dickens. Part of the assignment was to write a thesis on his works, going into detail about the context of his works and what had been going on in the world at that time. The trouble was that Lillian was doing her PHD on Dickens, so if I stuffed this up, she would know about it immediately. How stupid is it to give Dickens to the girl whose tutor is an expert on the subject?

DWPC

Twenty to nine, my presentation completed and with only one frown. Hopefully that was a good sign. I might even manage to pass this course if I could keep this up. The person who was after me, Bec, showed up just in time. It seemed that her son was sick again and she'd had to bring him with her, as he was currently sitting in the chair at the back of the room. I liked Bec, she was in her thirties but she was a good friend. It was still strange that I was only in High School last year, but now a lot of my friends are older than me, but at least five years. A couple of them were my age, like my Monday lunch partners, Melinda, Abby and Bella and on some occasions we were joined by Carla and Zara, but the majority were older than me, which I guess I didn't really mind too much, I was kind of used to it by the time October rang around.

I decided that I would be nice and stick around to look after Mark while Bec went on with her presentation. She, after all, she would have done the same for me. However when she was done and it was only ten past nine, I decided that I would head home. After all, I had no plans and I wasn't expected at any of my other classes today because of this presentation. I smiled at Bec as she came to collect her son and offered her breakfast, she agreed and we made our way to the upstairs cafeteria, they only opened at nine, so we were the only ones here. Which suited me just fine as I really wasn't one for crowds at all.

It took us nearly half an hour to get our food, eat it and have a decent conversation which mostly consisted of what we were doing for our summer classes. As it turned out, we were doing the same class, though whether we were at the same time, was an entirely different story in of itself.

By about ten thirty, when the cafeteria was starting to fill up for the rush, Bec and myself decided that it was high time we got ourselves out of there. After all, we had spent nearly an hour and a half there, surely we needed not spend another second.

I waved her goodbye and started on my way to the train station. It had cooled down considerably by this point and the shuttle was not due for another fifteen minutes, so walking had seemed like a better option than waiting, even if it would take me half an hour or so to walk, it would be a very pleasant walk, one that I had not done in a while.

Pulling out my phone and sticking my earphones in, I turned my music on and began the leisurely walk. I liked the weather like this, it made me happy I lived in Australia. It was only on those 40 degree days that I started to wish that I was somewhere else. Like England, I liked England, I had never personally been there of course, but I heard wonderful things about the place. Harry Potter world was there for example which I'm sure would be a fabulous place to go. My grandmother was English. She came to Australia thirties though, when she was only a little girl. I would have loved to have met her, but she died the year before I was born. Apparently she was an extremely kind woman, would give the shoes off of her feet to some people. In particular she gave what little money she had to charities, something I always admired and wanted to do myself. Problem is, the little money I get from the Government and my scholarships all gets used up for my Uni fees and other things, textbooks and computers etc. It was one of the reasons I want to do well. I want to get a good job and be able to pay alot to charity, which was one of my long term goals.

DWPC

It wasn't until about ten minutes into my walk that I started to think that something was a little off. For one thing, there were no cars on the roads, no people on the sidewalks and no birds in the sky. For another, there was a rather large, blue Police call box in the middle of the footpath. I followed it up with my eyes and blinked. How long had that been there. I suppose it could have been there a while, but surely I would have noticed it before today. Besides, these things were all pulled down after the sixties, it also didn't look anything like the Police boxes I was used to seeing. Maybe in England, but I wasn't sure if we even had these in Australia, so what on Earth was one doing here.

I blinked and took a couple of steps closer to it, holding out my hand to touch it. It was real then. I wasn't imagining it, unless my mind was playing an extremely powerful trick on me, which I doubted. When the door to the Police box opened, I nearly fell on my arse jumping backwards. It hadn't occurred to me that there would be someone inside. What was he even doing in there? I could have sworn I could see something bright in there, like a light or something. He was an older man, maybe in his fifties or something and he was wearing a greyish suit with black shoes I noticed as I looked up at him. Seeing as I am not the tallest person in the world, only around five feet two, he was taller than me, which really did not surprise me at all. When it came to my height, or rather, lack of height, nothing surprised me.

The man smiled lightly and waved his hand at me. "Excuse me Miss, do you mind moving to your left just a tad?" He asked.

I blinked at him, but nevertheless, I did as he asked. After all, it wasn't an unreasonable request, regardless of the fact that I had no idea of why he wanted me to move. As I did so, he held up some sort of beeping thing. He started pressing buttons on it and moved it around, like he was scanning something, I had never seen anything like it.

"What is that?" I asked, staring at it as if its secrets would become obvious the harder I looked, which was kind of ridiculous really.

The man looked at me, with something that resembled amusement and proceeded to fiddle with the object in his hand. "It is a Morphic Tracker. It scans the changes in the atmosphere and tells me where the Fire Flies are."

He was speaking English, but I had no idea what he was talking about. I stood looking at him, my mouth slightly agape as I tried to process the information. Morphic Tracker, atmosphere, Fire Flies? What was he talking about. "Why are you using the Atmosphere to track Fire Flies?" I asked, because I really had no idea what I was supposed to ask. Didn't fire flies only come out at night anyway?

The man seemed amused again and simply pointed to the bleeping thing. I looked at it, if I was reading it right, which I probably wasn't it looked like the 'Fire Flies' were very near us. I looked around, the only place they could be would be over in the park. I looked in that direction and felt a shuffle beside me. I looked back and saw that the man was closing the door to the Police box with a thud and nodding in that direction.

"Where are we going, you didn't answer my question?"

"No. I didn't."

Cryptic. "Well, what am I supposed to do now?"

"You are welcome to follow me. Or you could continue on your way, it does not bother me with either decision you make."

I bit my lip and thought for a second. He was kind of weird and I wasn't sure it would be the smart idea to follow the man. But we were out in the open and what was he going to do in a park anyway? It was empty save for a couple of kids and their mothers. I would be safe, surely.

By the time I had made up my mind to follow him, he was already crossing the road. I ran over to him and made sure he knew my decision. "I'm coming with you. Just don't be a weirdo, okay?"

He was amused yet again and there was a strange twinkle in his eye that kind of worried me. I couldn't quite place the emotion hidden in it. I was usually pretty good at reading people, something about this guy was a little off.

DWPC

We made our way over to the park and he proceeded to do whatever he had been doing before, but more hastily. I just watched him and made my way over to a swing to sit on. Some of the mother's had seen us coming and decided that they didn't want to be here anymore. They had left before we got here.

Watching the man work was strange. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing, at the same time that he looked like he was completely lost. Trying to figure out what he was even doing was enough to give me a headache. It was all so strange.

My phone told me that it was now eleven o'clock. I really should be heading home, but as I looked up, to explain this to the strange man I had recently met, I realised that he was nowhere to be found. I blinked. Where on Earth had he disappeared to?

I looked around and found him heading back towards the Police phone box. I quickly got off of the swings and followed after him. I stopped however when he stepped into the box and closed the door, though it was fully closed. It was open enough that I would be able to open the doors. Why had he gone in there? What was he doing in the tiny cupboard like box. Surely he can't have anything important in there, there would be no room.

I knocked on the door and pushed it open as I stepped inside.

"Oh, my, god."

I stepped back out again and walked around the outside. This just couldn't be possible. I was no scientist, but this was ridiculous, was I high?

I stepped back in, still expecting to be confronted with a wall, but there wasn't one. Instead there was a console in the middle of the giant room, leaning over it and fiddling with levers and buttons was the man himself.

He looked over at me, a knowing look in his eye. "This is… it's…"

He winked. "Go on, I've heard it all before."

"But I thought muggles weren't supposed to know about magic." I blurted.

The man blinked, clearly a little shocked. The first emotion I had seen from him other than amusement. "Well, I wasn't expecting that. Harry Potter fan are we?"

I was slightly shocked at that, it hadn't occurred to me that he would be a fan of Harry Potter. "Yes, but that isn't the issue here. How is this possible. Surely it's not, this is some kind of illusion right?" I asked, holding my hands in front of me and feeling around, wondering when I would hit the wall that had to be here somewhere. "You're a magician aren't you, like Cosentino."

He was amused again. "No, not a magician, and this is real, what you are seeing is actually here. Look." He walked over to me and touched my arm. If this was not real, surely he would not have been able to touch me. This is too weird.

"Then what is this. It's so much bigger on the inside."

"That was the phrase I was looking for. That's the one they all say. Remember that for next time." He said, walking back over to the console and pulling a screen towards him. "This is called a TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Basically, it's a time machine."

"A time machine? You have got to be kidding me. Are you telling me you are from the future?"

"I said time and relative dimension in SPACE, it's a space ship, that can also travel through time."

"So, you are from the future?"

"Not exactly, I'm not from this planet."

"So you're an alien?"

"From my point of view, you are the alien."

"But this is my planet."

"And I have been on it since before you were born. Besides, it's not just yours, the Silurians own it too."

"The what?"

"The Silurians, you know, big lizard like creatures, green scaly skin. Don't you know about them?"

"No, I'm sure I would remember seeing something like that."

"What year is this?"

"2013, why? You're the supposed time traveller, shouldn't you know?"

"Well, normally yes, but the TARDIS has been in a bit of disrepair I'm afraid and I haven't had the time to fix her."

"You speak as if it's alive."

"Isn't that interesting?" He asked, turning back to play with the console.

I walked over to where he was, having gotten tired of trying to figure out this illusion. "So if you're an alien, how come you look human? Is it some kind of filter thing?"

"Filter thing? My dear, you watch too much Science Fiction. No, this is what I look like, my people all look like this, but we came first, so technically, you look like us."

I nodded at this, as it made sense in theory, but he was still some crazy magician that escaped an asylum somewhere.

"What's your name anyway?" He asked the question that I hadn't even thought about. It seemed funny that I was standing in a Police box, that was apparently bigger on the inside, exchanging pleasantries with a complete stranger. If my parents ever heard about this, they would kill me. All this talk of stranger danger and here I was in a box with a stranger. Could this day get any weirder?

"My name is Teigan, Teigan Kaster."

"Teigan, I knew another by that name once, oh a long time ago now, I was a different man then."

I had no idea what he was talking about, but he seemed almost whimsical. "What should I call you?"

"I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor Who?"

"Exactly."

"What?"

"I'm the Doctor, that is what I'm called."

"You don't have a name? Or is that the kind of name your… people have."

"My name, the Doctor, is the name I chose. The name we choose is like a statement of who we are. I'm the Doctor."

"What kind of Doctor?"

"All kinds. Science, medical, engineering, you name it."

"So, you are really smart then?"

He nodded, as if this was obvious. I resigned to the fact that I was likely not going to get much more than that and decided that it was high time I make my way back home. Who knew how long I had been in this box, but it was really starting to freak me out and I was starting to believe that this, Doctor, really believed the bullshit he was feeding me.

"Well, I think I should get going, I mean, I am expected home soon and I don't want to keep my parents waiting. I mean, my train is probably already gone, so I'll have to wait for another, one, but then I don't really need to tell you that do I, because you so obviously have better things to do then whatever it is I might be doing so I'm just going to leave this conversation and be on my way."

I marched over to the door and threw it open.

"Wait, Teigan!"

Too late, I was already dangly out of the TARDIS, hanging to the threshold with all my not so apparent strength.

"Ahhhh!" I was too preoccupied with trying not to let go that I wasn't even able to comprehend the fact that there was a blackness with lights sprinkled around out here.

"Hold on, I got you." He reached down and made a grab for my hands, but I absolutely refused to let go, I didn't want to just be holding on with one hand, this was ridiculous. I shouldn't have anything to fall into!

"I'm going to fall if I let go!" I was looking up at him terrified. What the hell was happening, where was the ground!

"You won't fall. Okay, you are perfectly safe, you will not fall."

"You're not the one hanging on for dear life!"

He kneeled down in front of me and leaned down to look at me. "I give you my word, you will not fall. I promise."

Even though I had only just met this man, I had no idea who he really was and I was still convinced her was a crazy nutjob from an asylum, something in his voice made me want to believe him. I had thought earlier that he was in his early fifties maybe, but right now, his eyes looked as if they had seen more from life then what should be humanly possible.

"Okay."

He wrapped his hands around my wrists and steadied himself against the door with his knees. "On the count of three, I want you to let go, I will pull you up, okay?"

"Okay. On the count of three."

"I'll count with you, alright? Ready?"

I nodded and I felt his grip tighten.

"One."

"Two"

His grip got tighter and I looked back up at him, trying not to concentrate on the lack of mother earth beneath my feet.

"Three" He pulled me up with very little difficulty and I landed in front of him, also on my knees, shaking in shock and confusion. How was I able to have fallen below the box. Did he have some gas in the air that was making me hallucinate?

"Are you alright?" He asked me, slightly concerned which I was surprised at. He didn't even bat an eyebrow at the fact I was hallucinating at falling, he knew it was coming.

I threw myself against the wall as if he had suddenly changed into a giant dragon and I was trying to get away. "What are you?"

"I told you, I'm an alien."

"You can't be an alien, aliens don't exist." I hissed, my teeth clenched down so hard that I thought I might break them. "If aliens existed they would have told us."

"Why do you say that? As we have obviously just established, you don't even believe in aliens, time travel or space flight. To many cultures, you are inferior in so many ways, why would they want to reveal themselves to you?" He asked in a matter of fact way, like he had given this some thought and had had this conversation many times before.

"You revealed yourself." I blinked, that had not come out in quite the way it had in my head. I went red.

"Well, what a funny phrase to come from your mouth, how old are you? Seventeen? You are far too young for me I'm afraid."

"I'm nineteen, and that is not what I meant!"

"Really? Then what did you mean?" He asked, getting up from his kneeling position opposite me and snapping his fingers, which immediately caused the still open doors of the TARDIS to close.

"I meant that, like, you are an alien, apparently, and you are talking to me about TARDISes and Space and time machines."

"That's because I have a soft spot for the people of Earth, like a pet project you could say."

He held his hand out to me and I took it, allowing him to help me up, I still wasn't fully convinced about all this, but it was getting harder with each passing second to even attempt to explain it all away.

"So you're not a crazy lunatic from an asylum somewhere?"

"Well, I've been to an asylum before, but that wasn't because I was crazy, or because I wanted to go either, in fact, I would rather not even remembered having been there."

I pondered all of this and decided I really needed some Advil or something because all of this was just doing my head in and I didn't think I was ever going to understand any of it ever. One, this man was an alien, whether or not it was impossible was irrelevant, he was an alien. Two, he had a blue police box time machine that also happened to fly through space. Three, he seemed to be perfectly willing to have me here and didn't seem like the total freak I'd pegged him for initially. Four, I was actually starting to believe everything he was saying.

"Prove it to me."

He raised a slightly defiant eyebrow, an expression that almost made him seem years younger than he looked. "Sorry?"

"Prove you are an alien."

He thought for a second, his arms across his chest before he clicked his fingers and ran around and down the stairs to disappear under the floor. I leaned over the railing to ascertain where he had gone, when he reappeared with a stethoscope and a manic grin. "This should prove it, and if it doesn't, I'm afraid you will just have to take my word on it."

He came back up the stairs and stood in front of me, I had to look up because of the height difference. "Do you know how to take a pulse?" He asked me, tilting his head slightly in thought.

"Well I guess, I mean I've only ever done it on myself and once on a friend when we were in science class in ninth grade. But it should be the same principle right?"

He nodded and I breathed a sigh of relief, at least he wasn't telling me that his anatomy was completely different to my own, apart from the obvious differences of course.

He extended his arm out to me, wrist up and I carefully wrapped my hand around his wrist, using my middle and fourth fingers to apply the pressure to his wrist. I waited for a couple of seconds to be absolutely sure, but there it was as clear as day, a double pulse. I looked up at his face from where I had been staring at his hand and let it go. "Two pulses. How is that possible?"

"You wanted me to prove I am an alien, but here, take the stethoscope as well, this should prove without a doubt."

I took it from him and moved him over to sit on what appeared to be a chair. It was kind of bouncy though because he bounced a little when he fell into it, from me pulling him a little more roughly then I should have, but this was becoming increasingly a more crazy day and I wasn't sure I was prepared for what I was about to discover. If I do this there will be no way for me to deny his words any longer.

"You ready? You know what you're doing?"

I just looked at him and bent over him a little as I pressed the stethoscope to his chest, just about where his heart would be. There it was, a normal healthy sounding heart as far as what I could tell with my lack of medical knowledge. He pointed to his right side and a followed his directions, moving the stethoscope to the right side of his chest. Sure enough, there was a second heart there. "Binary cardio-vascular system?"

"Medical terminology?"

I just blinked as I continued to listen to his heart, it was weird, hearing the two beating almost in time, but there was one of them that was beating a little faster than the other, I wasn't sure which one it was, but it made the most interesting of sounds.

"I also watch Grey's Anatomy." I told him, to answer his earlier question. "I pick up a lot of language from that show too, also Law and Order and CSI." I moved myself away from him and pulled the stethoscope out of my ears. "Okay, so you're an alien, with two hearts apparently. Does that give you any advantages? Like stamina, longer life, higher blood pressure maybe? Though maybe high blood pressure is bad, in humans it's bad anyway, but maybe for your people it's a good thing, what are your people called anyway?"

He was just looking at me with an almost whimsical smile evident on his face. "I'm sorry, I'm talking way too much aren't I, I always do that, you know when I'm nervous or confused or just completely curious, I like to know things and sometimes I find it hard to shut up so maybe I'll just do this." I clamped my hand over my mouth to shut myself up. This morning I had barely said two words to my mother, but now I couldn't say anything less than an entire essay to this Doctor.

The Doctor laughed slightly and took the stethoscope from my other hand and placed it over the railing. "You definitely like to talk don't you? That's okay; I was like that once, still am sometimes. When you get me in the right mood, or I find a topic that is really interesting."

He walked around the console flipping some buttons and turning some handles before speaking again. "To answer your first question, I guess I do have more stamina then say a human, but I haven't really taken much notice, it's kind of something you take for granted, I do seem to do a lot of running though, so that probably makes my stamina more substantial as well."

Something told me, then when he said running, he didn't mean a fifteen minute jog around the park.

"With your question of longer life, I am around twelve hundred years old, so I'm sure you could put those pieces together yourself."

I dropped my hand from my mouth and nearly fell over with his casual mentioning of his age. I found myself gazing at him intently, trying to determine if he was lying, or simply joking to get a reaction out of me, neither appeared to be true so I was left with the job, of trying to figure out, how he could possibly be twelve hundred years old and still manage to look younger than my dad, who was fifty four. He wasn't kidding when he said I was too young for him, that was quite the age gap.

"My people were called Time Lords, from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. Though we are also called Gallifreyans, obviously."

"You said were, where are they now?"

He sighed, I had hit a nerve I did not realise was exposed. This conversation did not bode well.

"They're gone. Been gone for a while."

"Gone, what do you mean gone?"

"I mean lost, lost to time, I'm trying to find them. It is… difficult."

"Lost… to time. I'm sorry."

He looked at me incredulously, like I had two heads or something. "Don't be silly, why are you apologising?"

I raised my eyes to look at him, "because I brought it up." I said, brining my arms around my body to hug myself, "I'm saying I'm sorry, for making you feel sad."

"Don't be silly girl, you had no reason to suspect that speaking of my planet would bring me sorrow. However, I am greatful for the concern, so…thank you."

He turned back to the console and I kept watching him, the way he interacted with the ship, every touch, every caress, he was so careful, like the thing was alive. There was some beeping sounds and some lights on the console flickered, I got the distinct feeling it was, annoyed? Angry? Was this thing alive? More lights and flickering.

The Doctor looked back at me with a bemused glint in his eye. "Did I forget to mention the ship is telepathic? She can read your mind pretty well, so I would refrain from calling her a thing if I was you, you might regret it later."

"You weren't kidding when you said it was alive? I thought that was a joke."

"No, never, the TARDIS has a consciousness that allows her to tap into the minds of her occupants, she can literally feel what we need and she provides it, how else would I be able to jump around all of time and space and not have to go home to stock up as it were?"

"I suppose, I mean I know absolutely nothing about mechanics of this or any nature, but if you say so, I guess that does make sense. But don't you people, I mean aliens, have like space ports and stuff?"

"Well, yes, but where's the fun in stopping at every space port when you have a TARDIS that ensures you are always fed, clothed and stuffed full of everything else you could possibly dream up? Besides, not every space port carries all the necessary equipment for this kind of space exploration. I could end up stocked full of grapefruits and I hate those."

"No one likes Grapefruit."

"I did once, not this time though, funny how that works."

"What are you going on about?"

"Nothing, don't worry about it."

I rolled my eyes and walked over to sit on the chair I had checked his pulse on. It occurred to me that I had forgotten all about going home. I looked at my phone, my mum would be so worried, it was nearly three o'clock! Why hadn't she rang me?

"Crap!"

The Doctor looked up, eyebrows raising as he looked at the phone in my hands. "What's wrong?"

"My mother is going to go mental, I should have been home hours ago, man she is going to kill me, I have to go and catch my train!"

The Doctor threw his hands out to stop me as I made to run towards the door again. "Wait a minute; do you keep forgetting that this is a Time Machine? I can just take you back to whenever you need to be. And where ever, you don't need a train."

"Sorry," I said, stepping out of his grasp, "I guess I haven't fully comprehended all of this yet. I mean, it's all so new to me. This morning I was worrying about passing my last assignment, but now I'm standing in a space ship with an alien I just met, who casually tells me he is well over one thousand years old and his ship is alive."

I held my now throbbing head and sat down. "It is a lot to take in I know, just let it flow over you, if you try too hard to think about it, you might do some serious damage to your synapses." He said it so casually, that I actually had to wonder if he had even said anything. He looked down at my phone and pulled what looked like a weird flashlight out of his jacket. "Give me your phone for a second, I want to do something."

I handed it over and watched as he pointed the flashlight at my phone and pressed something on it. It lit up and made a strange noise. He did this a couple more times before handing it back. "You now get free intergalactic calls; try calling your mother and telling her your train was delayed, but that you'll be home in a few minutes."

I stared at my phone; sure enough I now had full reception, which would explain why she hadn't been able to call me. There were ten missed calls and nearly a dozen messages. I cringed; she is probably on to the police as we speak. Despite the fact that I was going to be yelled at so bad I might go deaf, I proceeded to call my mum.

The phone rang only once before my mother had answered.

"Teigan? Is that you baby?"

I sighed, she sounded like she had been crying. "Yeah mum, it's me. I'm so sorry."

"It's her Den, she's okay, ring Tenile. Where are you? I have been worried sick to death about you!"

I knew this was going to have happened, I am a terrible person. "Sorry mum, my train got delayed and I have my phone in my bag on silent."

"It told me it was turned off. I thought you had been kidnapped or something!"

Oh, so close. "No, sorry, we were stuck in a tunnel, uh, the train got sent onto the wrong track and uh, we had to stop for a while for some-one to come and help."

The severity of this narrative was becoming more and more excessive the longer I told it. "Look, I'll be home very soon, I am on the bus right now, see you in about five minutes okay? I love you."

I quickly hung up and looked over at the Doctor who was typing things into a keyboard. "What are you doing?"

"Typing in the coordinates, we are quite far from Earth so it takes a second sometimes."

"How far away are we?"

"Well, were orbiting Melissa Majoria, so about forty thousand light years there abouts."

"Why are we here?"

"Oh, well, you know how when you found me, I was talking about fire flies?" I nodded. "Well, they originated from Melissa Majoria, they crash landed on Earth and wanted a lift back home, I was following their distress beacon."

"Wait, are you telling me, Melissa Majora whatever, is a planet full of Fire flies. Fire flies are aliens?"

He shook his head. "Don't be silly, not just them, the bees live here too."

"Bees are aliens?"

"Mice and Dolphins too."

I blinked. "You're kidding right? What is this, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy?"

"Guide to the Galaxy? I so very much don't think so, but if it said that Mice and Dolphins are aliens, then it was somewhat right yes."

"Somewhat?"

"Well, the Mice and Dolphins on Earth now, have been there for thousands of years, so they are just a native as you, in fact more so as they have been around longer then you, their planets were destroyed just over one million years ago, they have pretty much been on Earth since then."

I, again, had to restrain myself from falling over at this new information, which I guess didn't really surprise me all that much. I was just about ready to accept anything the Doctor told me today, it was just one of those days. I slid off my jacket and casually tossed it onto the railing next to me. It was being to feel restricting.

"How do you know where I live?" I asked as I suddenly realised that he was putting in my home address.

"Oh sorry, I said the TARDIS was telepathic didn't I? Well, she assessed your need to be at home, I've had your address since the moment you set foot inside the TARDIS."

"Seriously? Well then, I guess, thank you TARDIS." I said, tapping the console a couple of times. If he was telling me that it was alive and had feelings, who was I to disagree.

"Alright, we should be just up the road a little from your house."

Ever the sceptic, I walked over to the doors and opened them, carefully this time, and peered outside. It did indeed look like my street; my bus stop was right in front of me. I peered around the corner and there I could see my house. So, he really was an alien who could travel through time and space. I looked back at him and smiled. "Sorry I doubted you."

"Many Great people have doubted me Teigan, I assure you, you are not the first to have done so."

I nodded at him and was about to step out the door, when a thought occurred to me. "Why did you let me follow you before, back at the park?"

"I guess I was kind of curious."

"Curious? Why? Curious of who?"

"You, I was curious of you because you are a coincidence."

"I'm a what?"

"A coincidence, not many people manage to be able to just casually bump into me without knowing who I am. You were just sort of there. Then, you followed me around without even thinking about what you were doing really, sure you hesitated at first, but in the end, you followed me, and led me straight to the fire flies, I guess I was curious as to why."

"But I'm nothing special, I was just walking home from Uni, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going, I could have been anyone."

"Teigan, I am going to tell you something, and I am going to mean it. In all my twelve hundred years of living, I have never, ever met someone who wasn't important. Everyone is unique."

"Thanks, I guess that means a lot. But, where will you go now, what will you do?"

I had to ask, he just didn't seem the type to be alone, it was just a feeling, but he seemed to me like the kind of person who needed to be with someone.

"I guess, I will return to my searching, looking for my home."

I dropped my eyes a little, I guess that made sense, he said his home was lost; he would want to find it of course. "I have every confidence that you will be successful on your travels Doctor. You will find your planet."

He smiled a little, but it wasn't a happy smile, it was a sad smile, similar to the one he had been wearing earlier in the day.

"Well, I guess I better be off, I'll… see you around, won't I?"

He nodded, "Definitely."

I headed out of the TARDIS and watched as it disappeared; a strange sounded encompassing it as it left. That sound would never leave me; I knew in my heart that I would hear it again.

DWPC

_Three weeks later._

Eventually I had gotten my mother to calm down, mostly with a story about how I had been so nervous about the assignment, I hadn't even thought to call her, and then there were the questions about where my jacket was. That one had been a little trickier to answer, I left it at Uni didn't seem to appease her so eventually I told her that I must have left it on the train in all the confusion, as it had been a hot day after all and that I am very sorry to have been so silly. Eventually she must have decided that I hadn't been kidnapped and brainwashed because she finally stopped asking me. It was hard for me to look her in the eyes and outright lie, but I really doubted that she would even be able to believe me if I told her. I didn't believe me. After I got back and the TARDIS was gone, I had started to believe that I had imagined the whole thing, but that was okay, at least it was a nice dream and not some scary arse zombie dream my sister was currently telling me about.

I eventually tuned her out; I would need to get ready for uni soon. Not that my mind was really going to be on it. I kept thinking about the TARDIS and the strange alien called the Doctor. It was all so dramatic, the most drama I had ever had in my life and it was contained in one day. I had to have the most boring life in existence. All that stuff he had said about being important was ridiculous, what was I going to do that was so special anyway, it sounded like a cheap pick up line to me, though considering he was supposedly over a thousand years old, maybe he made it up.

"Okay, Tenile I get it, Zombies are cool, can I go get dressed now?"

She rolled her eyes are me, waving me away and sighing. "You're no fun anymore, you love my dreams."

"Sorry, I just have more important things to focus on right now, maybe later?"

I crawled off of the lounge and trudged gingerly into my bedroom.

Today, it was cooler than it had been in that fateful Monday, Mondays always seemed to be cool these days, which was funny, and it wasn't like it was a competition or anything, though it was almost like it was reflecting my mood. I was now really missing my favourite jacket, though when I looked down at the red jeans and black top I was wearing, I very much doubted that the orange would have presented well.

Walking out the door I grabbed my hoodie on the way out and threw it quickly over my head. I didn't want to freeze, though truthfully it wasn't really that cold, maybe just pushing twenty five degrees, but when your body was used to thirty plus temperature, twenty five was pretty cool.

My walk to the bus stop was filled with my thoughts of The Doctor and his TARDIS. I had not heard hide nor hair of them since three weeks ago and he had said I would see him again. Perhaps it really had been a dream, but I had been thinking of them more and more often over the past week and it was starting to possess my every waking hour. It was becoming so frequent that I nearly wrote about it in an essay the other day and had to slap my face to break myself out of it. This was ridiculous really.

"You really are out of it aren't you."

I knew that voice. I looked up and sure enough, the Doctor and the TARDIS had appeared in front of me, just like the first time we met. I blinked at him, I was too shocked to even say anything.

"Geez, you look like you've never seen a materialising TARDIS before, what's with you. I popped straight back after I left, you forgot your… jacket."

The Doctor was looking at me as if he finally noticed what I was wearing. "Did you change your clothes? How did you change them so fast, I only just left you didn't I?"

I couldn't manage to speak anything yet, so I simply shook my head. The Doctor looked around and seemed to notice, as if for the first time, that it was darker then the last time he saw me. The sky looked like it was threatening to rain.

"Damn, how long has it been?"

I swallowed very slowly and bit my lip. "Three weeks."

He blanched and shook his head. "Three weeks? I am so sorry, sometimes this happens, time means very little to me, I must have miscalculated, I'm sorry."

I shook my head as I reached out to retrieve the jacket he was holding out to me. I didn't really have anywhere to put it, so I just shrugged it on over my jumper, at least it would keep me very warm, regardless of how weird it probably looked. "I thought you had gone, disappeared out into the stars." My voice was a little smaller then I had thought, standing in the middle of the path, neighbours on all sides, talking to a strange man in a box, my neighbours were sure to have a field day.

"I just popped back to return your jacket, I doubted I was going to need it and the TARDIS seemed to think it was of value to you."

"Well, yeah something like that, it's my favourite jacket I guess."

"See, she knows you very well already, though it isn't hard when one is telepathic, isn't that right girl?" He asked, stroking the door to the TARDIS, which almost seemed to hum in acknowledgement. It was still strange about that telepathic being alive machine that could fly through time and space thing. I didn't think I would ever get used to it.

"Well, that's um, nice I guess." I looked past the TARDIS to see that my bus was going to be here very soon, I could see it turning onto my street from up the road a way.

"What's wrong with you?"

I sighed and looked back to him. "Why are you still here? You've returned my jacket, I can't imagine why you would still be here?"

The Doctor finally let out a sigh that I hadn't realised he had been holding. "That's well… I was thinking it over and I realised that I missed you immediately after you were gone. I haven't travelled with another person in quite a while and the TARDIS has reminded me on several occasions that I really shouldn't travel alone. So, I was wondering if you might want to travel with me. I mean it can just be one trip if that's all you want, or it could be more long term, you could even just specify that I only take you for one trip a week and then bring you home so you can spend time with your family before coming to see you again. I had a companion do that once. Every Wednesday I would pick her up and-"

"I said yes. I would love to travel with you, in whatever capacity I'm allowed to, because honestly, I don't care if you are a psychopath from down the road, an alien from Mars or a time travelling clown, you've convinced me that you can go anywhere, and I believe you."

When my bus stopped, I waved it on and saw the confusion in the man's eyes as he took in the sight before him. It must have looked strange indeed.

"Well, I don't know that I appreciate the name calling, but I suppose I can accept that." He said, looking remarkably happy after the insults I just made.

I shook my head, "I am Australian, and insults are a part of who we are. I should warn you about that."

"I knew an Australian, her name was Tegan, the same one I told you about before, I met her when she was trying to get to Heathrow Airport. She didn't insult people, though I admit to her feistiness."

"Just how many people have you had with you Doctor?" I asked, as he stepped out of the way from me to step past him into the TARDIS.

"Well, there have been a few, though I don't really remember how many."

Evasive, though I wasn't really expecting anything else. "Well, it doesn't really matter, I am here now and you are going to have a hard time getting rid of me, just so you know."

The Doctor flashed me another knowing smile, though this one was slightly different to the one I had seen earlier. How can one person have so many different smiles, here I thought they were all sort of the same. Maybe it was just my smiles that all looked boringly the same?

"I've had many say that, none of them are with me any longer."

I wasn't sure if that was supposed to scare me or anger me, but it did neither and I instead decided to shrug. "I am extremely stubborn." I told him winking and walking over to drop my bag onto the floor near the chair. Throwing myself on it and enjoy the bounce it contained.

"Well, now that you're here, where do you want to go first?"

The question was to be expected, yet now that he had asked it, I was invariably surprised by the answer that immediately exited my mouth.

"ANZAC Day, Nineteen ninety three."

The Doctor raised his eyebrow and tilted his head a little. "Why so specific, you could go anywhere, and everywhere, why specifically that day." He seemed a little worried by what I might say.

"I have always thought that if I got my hands on a time machine, the first place I would want to go would be to some place like, the Dawn of Man, or to meet Emily Dickinson, or maybe H.G. Wells or something like that, you know? But when you asked me just then, the place I wanted to go first, the first thing that came to my mind, was that date."

"Why? What significance is it to you? You weren't born then were you?"

"No, but my Grandmother was, she died on that day."

"Teigan, I can't help you stop her from dying, the whole fabric of time will-"

"Oh, shut up will you, she died of cancer, there's nothing I could do about it, stop freaking out, I just want to be with her when she dies, she was alone in her house, blind and in pain, I just want to be with her, talk to her, you know? Can we do that please?"

The Doctor seemed to be a little taken back. I smiled and shook my head at him. "There are going to be a lot of firsts when it comes to me Doctor, I'm starting to realise that. Just punch in the digits and let's go."

He did as I asked and I sat back in the chair, staring up at the roof of the TARDIS, at least I thought it was the roof, in all possibility it could have been anything, I just didn't know, though I preferred to think of it as the roof, it would be so much easier that way.

"Were here, are you sure you want to do this. It will be painful."

He was standing in front of me as I opened my eyes, though I hadn't realised I had closed them. "I'll be fine, I've been, I guess, preparing for this since I first heard about how she died. Plus, I never knew her, so I guess I don't know what I'm missing out on, I want to feel that. She was such an amazing person, apparently."

"Well, we are just outside her home, its three o'clock in the morning, why was no one with her."

I traced the lines on the chair I occupied and looked down, "they thought she would at least hold on until morning. I they all went out, to the pub, they thought she would be alive in the morning."

I didn't hear him move, but suddenly the Doctor was holding a handkerchief out to me and I had to physically restrain myself from bursting into tears. The thought of my Grandmother left alone like that was a secret that stayed within our family. No one knows the story. Now the Doctor knows it.

He held his hand out to me and I took it, allowing him to pull me up and over to the doors of the TARDIS. "You sure you're ready to do this?"

I nodded and opened the doors wide; the house looked the same as all the pictures. All the lights were off. "Can we get in?"

"Yeah, my sonic is good with doors." He pulled that same flashlight out of his pocket.

"I thought that was a flashlight from the future or something."

The Doctor snorted, "Hardly, it's a sonic screwdriver; its good at sonicing things, except wood, wood is a pain. I still can't get it to do wood."

"But the door is wood."

"The handle on the door is not however and that is what I will be sonicing."

"That's the thing you used for my phone, that's why it gets reception right?"

He nodded and I looked towards the door. "Okay, I'm ready to go. After this, you're taking me to another planet, preferably a warm one. I am sick of this cold."

"Sure kid, whatever you say."

* * *

**A/N: I am so sorry for the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy reference, I was watching it when I started writing this and it sort of slipped its way in there. Fear not though, I almost had a Glee reference in there, but I decided it would be best to leave that alone. Anyway, this is where I am going to end it, anything that happens after this is likely to be kind of sad and I am pretty shit at writing sad things, so I hope you enjoyed this. I hate self inserts as much as the next guy, but I just wanted to write this, maybe give myself an insight into what I would have been like if I met the Doctor, I do imagine it happening like this, though somehow I don't think fireflies for Melissa Majoria are likely to be involved. Anyhow, please read and review and let me know what you guys think. I must admit this is much longer then I first imagined it, so I apologise for that. Anyway, I'm outta here, love you all!**

**~Angel.**


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